Residents in the Houston and Granisle regions, who have received their first dose would also need to register online on the province’s Get Vaccinated website.
Last week, provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry shed some light on the confusion over the registration portal and registration for vaccines.
“Everybody in B.C. now who’s 18 years of age and older is eligible and should be registering on our Get Vaccinated website or by calling 1-833-838-2323,” Henry said, adding that it would be helpful to register even for those who received their first dose before the registration portal opened up, and got their first doses through either a workplace program, a pharmacy program or a local vaccination drive.
Several residents in the Houston and Granisle area received their first dose during a community clinic held in April. In a Facebook post on Northern Health’s Burns Lake group, a representative with the health authority also encouraged residents to register on the Get Vaccinated website.
”If you registered on the province’s Get Vaccinated website, you will be automatically notified. If you received dose 1 before the registration system was available, starting May 1, you will be able to register. You will then get a notification when you are eligible to book your second dose. People who get their first vaccine dose will be notified by email, text or phone call when they are eligible to book an appointment for their second dose,” said the representative.
Northern Health’s Eryn Collins told Black Press Media in an email that in the few cases where individuals who had recently had their first dose, registered on the Get Vaccinated site for their second dose but the system didn’t recognize that they had already had the first dose. Such individuals might have received an invitation to book their appointment for the first dose but that issue has now been resolved.
In another announcement from the province, girls and women older than 16 years and pregnant, would now be prioritized in the province’s immunization roll-out. The top doctors are also looking into possibilities of rolling out the first dose of the vaccine to everyone ages 12 and up by the end of June after Health Canada approved Pfizer for that age group last week.
Meanwhile, the province’s COVID-19 case count has continued to creep upwards. As of Friday, there were 722 new cases confirmed and seven additional deaths. According to the weekly update on the local health area cases between April 25 and May 1, the Burns Lake Local Health area saw three new cases while the Smithers local health area saw four new cases.
The province also recorded its first case of a rare blood clot condition in a woman who received a dose of AstraZeneca vaccine in the Interior Health region.
Henry however assured that the world-wide results show the risk of the blood clot condition is about one per 100,000 doses of the vaccine.
Priyanka Ketkar
Multimedia journalist
@PriyankaKetkar
priyanka.ketkar@ldnews.net
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